From January 10 to March 7, 2026
Gilles Pourtier Speak and well
From January 10 to March 7, 2026
Although he explores the fields of sculpture and drawing, Gilles Pourtier remains above all a photographer—an artist who continually questions both the specificities of the medium and the functions of the image. His practice is therefore rooted in an experimental exploration of the long history of photographic processes, which he appropriates, diverts, and reinterprets in order to give them a resolutely contemporary dimension.
Drawing successively on the daguerreotype, cyanotype, analogue photography, and even the possibilities offered by AI, he produces bodies of work that seem to suspend time. In other series, he plays with the idea of extraction or sampling, as in his drawings that reveal the rare figures present in the industrial architecture photographs of the Germans Bernd and Hilla Becher, or in his solarisations of clouds—distant homages to the famous Equivalents produced by Alfred Stieglitz in the 1930s.
Alongside this, Gilles Pourtier has developed a sculptural practice that leads him to highlight shared forms among certain objects by altering their status through transformations of material—such as the primitive-looking “masks” presented here. This new exhibition at our Paris gallery invites viewers to engage with and absorb the full range of possibilities of the image in a world saturated with visuals.
Pourtier (Gilles)
Gilles Pourtier, born in 1980, lives and works in Marseille.
After studying Modern Literature, Gilles Pourtier undertook training as a glass artist in Nancy at the Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation aux Arts Verriers (CERFAV), which led him to work for four years in London at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design University College.
In 2006, he entered the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (ENSP) in Arles, from which he graduated in 2009—the same year he took part in the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie. During his three years of study in Arles, he developed a personal body of work combining photography, sculpture, and drawing.
Gilles Pourtier continually questions what constitutes art today. While a large part of his work explores the image, he also develops a sculptural practice that leads him to highlight the shared forms of certain objects by changing their status through the transformation of materials.
Gilles Pourtier has exhibited in various art centers. Notably, his work has been shown at Le Bal (2012), FRAC Sud (2016 and 2019), Le Point du Jour (Cherbourg, 2021), Espace de l’Art Concret (Mouans-Sartoux, 2023), and URDLA (Villeurbanne, 2020 and 2024).
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